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Well the triple-A titles are nearly all on console also, so covered hugely elsewhere at places like... well, Eurogamer.

Although true, it also assumed by the writers that the reader will be a console gamer. Some are better than others in that regard, such as Eurogamer, but it is unlikely that a review will ever be done on a PC and discuss issues that might concern a PC player, particularly if they go beyond graphical fidelity. RPS can just focus on the one (true) platform and give me the information from a perspective that I actually care about. (Having said that, I've always thought it would be good to have a weekly round up of the goings on on console land.)

I also find that my opinion on games align with the writers of RPS more often than not, so there opinion means a lot more to me than the writers of other sites. Reviews of Tomb Raider were almost unanimously very positive across the board, but the RPS review highlighted the areas that I knew would bother. Based on other sites, I probably would have put a pre-order in, but I held off for RPS and decided it was a bargain buy. Footage I've seen since and player comments makes me believe this was the right choice.

So, I want RPS to cover as many games as I am likely to play as possible. I'm probably not going to play Indie Platformer 34. As someone else says though, I think there is just a drought on AAA games news at the moment. We have had a couple of pretty big releases (the aforementioned Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite,) and those have received plenty of coverage. I don't feel as if I am missing out on anything by sticking to RPS as my main source of gaming news.

There really hasn't been much news to report I don't think. Maybe I'm out of the loop a bit these days, but what big games are even on the horizon? Other than an MMO or two I can't think of much off the top of my head. It seems most "AAA" publishers are holding their cards for the announcement of the next gen consoles.

Apparently Bethesda is going to publish "Project Zwei" and... well, um, then there's Battlefield 4, Witcher 3 and DA3 coming out at some point of time. That's all I can name right away.

I can't think of [m]any big releases that have not been given coverage here this year. The hive mind is obviously rather fond of indie games too but I do not think that the ratio of posts is disproportionate. There is some leeway given to smaller indie games compared to big budget AAA games but I think that is due to the relatively modest scale of scope and or budget.

I think that all games are covered optimistically and enthusiastically, whether indie or not. I remember some pretty optimistic articles about all the CoD games for instance - and if there is ever a series of games the receives negativity....

yes, there are a lot of posts about political aspects of gaming because the hive mind do and have always believed such things are important. Sexism may be a recent bugbear but it is not the first. The fact that it has proved so divisive compared to others may be quite telling.

Looking through their archives I actually don't think that the subject matter has shifted much at all. With the passing of old writers there have been shifts in particular focusses and tastes but the only real area where I feel like there has been a significant tonal shift is with us, the audience.

Apparently Bethesda is going to publish "Project Zwei" and... well, um, then there's Battlefield 4, Witcher 3 and DA3 coming out at some point of time. That's all I can name right away.

Well, there is plenty of big kickstarter (bigstarter..? Sorry) projects to be waiting for, though they tend to have ETA's in 2014 and beyond mostly. But Project Eternity, Wasteland 2, Torment, Double Fine and others will someday show up :)

I feel there’s less critical engagement than there used to be. It’s basically “This thing is coming out” WIT’s and “we talked to some people in fairly tightly controlled circumstances”. The things such as Gaming Made Me, Game Diaries and essays seem to have died off a bit. Not complaining that this is the case as they can do as they wish, but I would prefer more of the latter and a lot less of the former personally.

The Mental Health stuff this year has been my personal highlight, excellent stuff, and it’s that sort of thing which still makes RPS stand out in my experience, you wouldn’t get it anywhere else. I’d just like more of it is all.

But me wanting something is no more than that, and should have no bearing on what some blokes want to do with the site they own basically.

Well, there is plenty of big kickstarter (bigstarter..? Sorry) projects to be waiting for, though they tend to have ETA's in 2014 and beyond mostly. But Project Eternity, Wasteland 2, Torment, Double Fine and others will someday show up :)

They've all been covered by RPS as and when the news outs though, I just think we're in a lean patch of news for any website that doesn't cover Nintendo. Nothing wrong with using that time to give indies extra coverage in my book.

Originally Posted by sonson

I feel there’s less critical engagement than there used to be. It’s basically “This thing is coming out” WIT’s and “we talked to some people in fairly tightly controlled circumstances”. The things such as Gaming Made Me, Game Diaries and essays seem to have died off a bit. Not complaining that this is the case as they can do as they wish, but I would prefer more of the latter and a lot less of the former personally.

The Mental Health stuff this year has been my personal highlight, excellent stuff, and it’s that sort of thing which still makes RPS stand out in my experience, you wouldn’t get it anywhere else. I’d just like more of it is all.

But me wanting something is no more than that, and should have no bearing on what some blokes want to do with the site they own basically.

There really hasn't been much news to report I don't think. Maybe I'm out of the loop a bit these days, but what big games are even on the horizon? Other than an MMO or two I can't think of much off the top of my head. It seems most "AAA" publishers are holding their cards for the announcement of the next gen consoles.

And that's what I've felt like. Slow news day after day, week after week. But I don't think it's been them, I think it's been gaming in general. I haven't read a Sunday papers post that really made me think / I wanted to talk about for a long time now.

They can't report on what doesn't exist. Look at the Amazon PC Game releases for the past month, there's nothing there. It's a slow period, not helped by the fact that many big publishers have ignored the PC platform for years, or that they still tend to shove them in a pile on specific dates, or that the consoles are on the way out so less AAA games are being made. I feel sorry for you if at this stage you don't even dabble in the Indi scene, because all signs point to it being the face of PC gaming this year, perhaps even gaming in general.

I feel there’s less critical engagement than there used to be. It’s basically “This thing is coming out” WIT’s and “we talked to some people in fairly tightly controlled circumstances”. The things such as Gaming Made Me, Game Diaries and essays seem to have died off a bit. Not complaining that this is the case as they can do as they wish, but I would prefer more of the latter and a lot less of the former personally.

I'm not sure if there's actually less diaries/essays etc, it seems to me more like there's more news posts so there's a bit of a skew in ratio rather than actual amount of content. I could be wrong though and certainly don't have the will to actually quantify such things! Certainly I agree though, I'm less engaged with the "here's a video" posts, although I can't resist clicking on them in case I miss out on a prime punning opportunity!

I feel there’s less critical engagement than there used to be. It’s basically “This thing is coming out” WIT’s and “we talked to some people in fairly tightly controlled circumstances”. The things such as Gaming Made Me, Game Diaries and essays seem to have died off a bit. Not complaining that this is the case as they can do as they wish, but I would prefer more of the latter and a lot less of the former personally.

I agree. I think it was the Dwarf Fortress series that made me actually read RPS on a regular basis.

The problem with the WITs though is that they're starting to become fairly light on "What they think" and are starting to sound like advertisements or rants. The Papo and Yo article is a good example - the first half is a bunch of anecdotes which aren't particularly informative, the actual WIT doesn't really start until the last bit. I get the connection but I don't think it was necessary. Also although the review admits it has many flaws and is effectively a boring puzzler, it ends with "But it's still good and worth getting!" which is becoming the punchline to way too many indie reviews, not just on RPS but elsewhere. It's almost like "Well the execution is boring and if it was anything else we'd skip it, but it's indie and it's got art and style so it's great really go buy."

Then again, as you say we're not running the site, they can write however they like. Doesn't mean we can't offer opinions though!

Nalano's Law - As an online gaming discussion regarding restrictions grows longer, the probability of a post likening the topic to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea approaches one.
Soldant's Law - A person will happily suspend their moral values if they can express moral outrage by doing so.

It's more about what the writers write about rather than the usual gaming news that made me frequent RPS. They always shell out such brilliant stuff even when their just basically ranting about it but I do really miss some stuff that they haven't made for a while like Gaming Made Me or this

I'm guessing that the time investment proved a bit much for someone (like Alec) not particularly interested in football. While FM is an inherently interesting game on some levels and the stuff people say about it being a sim and an RPG are all true, it also takes a long time to complete a single season. You could also probably play for 4-5 hours and not get anything much anecdote worthy.

It feels more and more like my expensive computer is being used to run games that could have run on an Amiga 1200, and that seems mainly what RPS is reporting on. There's no excitement any more. It all seems to be rather dull. Eurogamer seem to have far more interesting articles about devs and pubs, while PCG seems to be going down the same route as RPS.

I understand that some people will be looking towards arty indy games, but those articles seem to curry little favour compared to the ones pointed towards bigger stuff (judging by comment rate).

Is it just me?

Yes. The best games were on the Amiga 1200. Why do you have an expensive computer anyway? We all know you cannot drive a Veyron at 250mph down a motorway, so who is at fault. By your logic, TopGear is...

I'm guessing that the time investment proved a bit much for someone (like Alec) not particularly interested in football. While FM is an inherently interesting game on some levels and the stuff people say about it being a sim and an RPG are all true, it also takes a long time to complete a single season. You could also probably play for 4-5 hours and not get anything much anecdote worthy.

I'd like to think that Alec is commencing his 16th season on FM2012, just about to start leading Worcester on the big push to the Champions League Final and claiming the ultimate trophy, preparing to unleash a torrent of words about his exploits on RPS. But I can imagine he stopped playing it shortly after in this cruel world of too many games and it taking about 15 hours to complete a season.

Also although the review admits it has many flaws and is effectively a boring puzzler, it ends with "But it's still good and worth getting!" which is becoming the punchline to way too many indie reviews, not just on RPS but elsewhere.

Indies usually end up having great ideas, poor execution so they often fall into the "good experience despite its shortcomings". It's a valid recommendation, even though you see it often regarding indies.

RPS's main thing is that they write about indie games on the same level as AAA games. It's basically their reason for existing and it's what they've always done. It's very odd to complain about it, or suggest it's a new thing.

It's true that the increase in 'news posts' that just report an announcement or trailer has buried some of the better content. But essentially RPS is the same as it's always been.

I would like to see RPS do a bit more actual REPORTING. You know, investigating and stuff, rather than just posting opinion pieces. (Recently sites like PA Reports and Polygon seem to have started doing that a lot more). But then again, RPS is just a blog and maybe that's not what they want to do.